by Merry Farmer
They sat together. Hero kept his arm around her shoulders, sensing that she needed the support.
“You’re kidding.” She finished wiping her eyes with the back of her sleeve, then reached for a tissue from the box on the end table to blow her nose. “I would have expected you to run at the first chance. Everyone else always has.”
He wasn’t sure whether to find her touch of gloom endearing or to snap her out of it. “Lucky for you, I’m not everyone else.”
She finished wiping her nose and looked at him with watery, grateful eyes. “No, you’re not.”
No one had ever looked at him like that before, like he might actually be living up to his name. His Dad used to tease him by telling him that everyone needed a Hero in their life, but for the first time it wasn’t a joke. Denise did need him.
“I tell you what,” he said, giving her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “I don’t need to be in Haskell for another week. Since your car is out of commission, why don’t I stick around for a little while?”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes.” He laughed. “I mean, why not? The whole point of arriving before the job starts was to get to know the locals. Culpepper isn’t Haskell, but it’s still local. And maybe I can help you deal with Destiny’s father. I hate to say it, but sometimes a guy like that won’t try to push a woman around if there’s another guy in the picture.”
“You hate to say it, and I hate to agree that you’re right.” Denise paused, staring at him as if he were an enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a puzzle, smothered in secret sauce. “You’d do that for me?”
“Absolutely.” He smiled, feeling it down to his toes. “I told you that I liked you.”
“How could you possibly like me after what you just witnessed?”
“How could I not?” He took her hand and held it. “You’ve been nothing but honest with me since the moment we met. I have eyes, I can see that this mess with your daughter isn’t one you made all by yourself. She’s a teenager who hasn’t had a stable male influence in her life. Her father, well, I don’t like to make snap judgments about people, but he’s a first-class jerk, isn’t he?”
“He’s that and more.” She relaxed a little, snuggling against him.
He liked it, so much that he pulled her closer. So much that he slipped his fingers under her chin and turned her face up so that she looked into his eyes. “It’s going to be all right,” he promised her. “I’m here for you. I won’t let you down.”
She returned his sentiment with a look that was so vulnerable, so hopeful, that in spite of all the logical reasons why he shouldn’t do it, he leaned in and kissed her. It was supposed to be a short, friendly kiss of support—if there was such a thing—but in two seconds flat it turned into a deep, passionate, all-encompassing kiss. It was the best kiss he’d had in years, maybe ever. It was a kiss that he didn’t want to end. In spite of the fact that he and Denise had just met.
“Here you go. I’ve added a little sugar to—”
Mrs. B. stopped in the doorway from the kitchen, surprise popping her eyes wide. Denise pushed back from Hero, like she’d been caught out of bounds. Hero could only laugh and say, “Well, there goes my master plan to steal your daughter and your cookies.”
It was the perfect thing to say to break the tension. Mrs. B. laughed and brought her tray to the end table. Even Denise managed a pink-faced giggle, though her eyes sparkled with a deeper desire. Hero smoothed things over as best he could by sampling a cookie and suggesting they take some up to Destiny. In short order, things were back to normal.
Although he was pretty sure his life had just changed forever.
4
No one in Denise’s entire life—well, except maybe her mom—had ever told her they would be there for her…and then actually stuck around to be there. But Hero had. She was certain that when he left after a tense supper at Bob’s, and then an even worse after dinner coffee at home, with Destiny still moody and pouting, that he would never come back. But true to his word, he was just checking into Culpepper’s only hotel for the night. The next morning, bright and early, he was back at the house, ready to drive Denise around on wedding errands.
“I wouldn’t ask you to do all this with me if it wasn’t really important,” she explained as she piled flowers into Hero’s arms at the florist.
“It’s okay,” he said with a genuine smile. “I really don’t mind. In fact, this is fun.”
“Fun?” Denise paused, cocking her hip to one side, like she used to do back in the days when she’d still had attitude, and giving him a flat stare. “Loading your fancy car up with flowers to take to the church and then standing around making bouquets and altar arrangements is your idea of fun?”
He shrugged. “My mom is into ikebana, so I have experience with this kind of stuff.”
She did a double-take. “Your mom is into what?”
“Ikebana.” He chuckled, his growing grin hinting that he knew exactly how dirty she thought that word sounded.
“That’s an awfully personal detail for you to tell me about your mom,” she joked, picking the last bucket of flowers up from the florist’s counter and starting out of the shop ahead of Hero.
“Ikebana is the Japanese art of flower arranging,” Hero explained, humor brightening his voice. “Like just about everything else in my ancestral culture, it’s all about balance and pleasing form.”
Denise glanced over her shoulder to reply only to find Hero staring at her as if her form were incredibly pleasing to him. She completely forgot what she was going to say and blushed scarlet. Hero caught her reaction and laughed.
“What? I’m a connoisseur of all things pleasing,” he teased.
Denise laughed, snorting as she did. That had to make her ten times less attractive than what she considered already pitifully unattractive, but Hero kept on smiling as they loaded the flowers in the car.
She loved that about him, loved the fact that he kept on smiling. As bad as things had gotten with Wes the day before, Hero had taken it all in stride. It didn’t matter that she barely knew him. It felt like they’d been friends forever. More than friends, it felt like they were soulmates. And that kiss on the couch? Wow.
Culpepper’s church was buzzing with activity by the time they got there.
“Oh good!” Nancy O’Donnell, Elvie’s sister-in-law greeted them at the door with a look of relief. “I was beginning to wonder where the flowers were.”
“We’ve got them,” Denise assured her. Hero was already a good influence on her. Without him by her side, she was certain she’d be as frazzled as Nancy was about wedding preparations. “Hero insists he can help with the arrangements. His mom knows ikebana, after all.”
“She knows who?” Nancy blinked as she held the door for Denise and Hero.
“Ikebana is Japanese for flower arranging,” Hero explained, sending Denise a grin for their inside joke as he followed her down the hall to the church’s kitchen. “I’m Hero, by the way. I’m with Denise. I hope you don’t mind.”
“You’re…” Nancy’s brow shot up. “I thought you were from the florist shop.”
“No, ma’am.” Hero put his load of flowers down on the kitchen counter, then extended a hand to Nancy. “I’m a friend of Denise’s. A good friend,” he added with a significant glance at Denise.
Denise felt her face grow hot. She felt her heart flutter and places further south of that squiggle. One look at Nancy was enough to know she was totally obvious in her reaction.
“Well, hello.” Nancy shook Hero’s hand with a significant look. “Very nice to meet you.”
“Likewise.” Hero smiled, of course. “Denise was telling me all about you and your husband, Doc, and her friend Elvie as we were running errands this morning.”
“All good things,” Denise insisted, suddenly terrified Nancy would think she’d been gossiping. After all, everyone always gossiped about her, so of course they’d assume she’d do the same.
“I’m sure.�
�� Nancy shifted to hug Denise sideways. “Denise is a really special person. She’s come so far in such a short amount of time. It’s so nice to see she’s made a new friend.”
Anyone from Culpepper to San Francisco and back could see exactly what Nancy meant.
“I’m glad to have made her acquaintance too.” Hero looked at Denise with a smile that said much more.
“We really should get these arrangements put together,” she answered, sure that her voice sounded as squeaky as a teenage girl with her first crush.
“Yeah,” Nancy admitted reluctantly. “We have so much to get done. Culpepper has had a ton of weddings lately,” she explained to Hero, “but we’ve fallen into this habit of having people get married really quickly and without a lot of fanfare.”
“Oh yeah?” Bless him, but Hero seemed genuinely interested in the goings on of Culpepper.
“It’s a long story. Elvie and Evan decided to buck that trend,” Nancy went on, helping Denise and Hero set out the flowers so they could make arrangements. “Evan is the heir to the Kissie Lips fortune, so they have to make a big deal for the media.”
“They found the heir?” Hero fell easily into conversation while following Denise’s silent instructions about the flowers.
“Yeah,” Nancy went on, as excited as the day it’d all first gone down. “It’s kind of a long story. There’s a shady lawyer involved, of course. But at last, Evan has stepped forward to claim his great-aunt’s inheritance, and now he and Elvie are getting married.”
“Looks like I showed up in Culpepper at just the right time,” Hero said.
More than the right time, Denise thought to herself. He’d shown up at the perfect time in so many ways. Part of her thought she should give herself more credit for all the work she’d done to become a better person. But somehow, having Hero there with her as they arranged flowers and decorated the church and pretty much went out of their ways to make sure Elvie and Evan would have the best wedding ever, gave Denise a sense of legitimacy. Like she really was a better person now.
She had almost convinced herself that everything was just fine and her new leaf had been turned over when Wes marched into the church like he owned it.
“I remember wasting my Sunday mornings here when I was a kid,” he declared to Mona, who looked bored. “It was such a joke that my mom made me come all the time.”
“Then why are you showing me?” Mona complained.
“I’m giving you a full tour of the town, baby. The church is part of that.”
Denise walked out of the kitchen, her arms full of flower arrangements, in time to hear the exchange. She stopped with a gasp at the sight of the two.
Wes seemed equally as surprised to see her, but he recovered first. “Well, look who it is. My baby girl’s trashy mom.”
Denise’s shock at seeing Wes quickly dissolved to shame and anger. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m giving my wife a tour of the town.” Wes slipped his arm around Mona’s tiny waist, pulling her closer. Mona grimaced, but put up with the possessive gesture.
“Oh. If that’s all it is.” Denise swallowed and carried her flowers past him into the sanctuary.
“What’s all this fanciness for?” Wes followed her, his tone badgering.
Nancy stood at the front of the sanctuary, arranging the altar bouquets. Her ears obviously perked as Wes entered the room with his questions. Hero had moved to helping Arch O’Donnell hang white Christmas lights around the room. He clearly snapped to high alert.
“My friend Elvie is getting married tomorrow,” Denise explained, carrying her flowers to the front of the room without looking at Wes.
“Oh yeah. I heard something about little Elvie O’Donnell getting married to some candy baron or something,” Wes said.
“The Kissie Lips heir?” Mona perked up. “That was all anyone could talk about last month. And you say he’s getting married here? Tomorrow?”
“Yes.” Denise put her flowers down and turned to Wes and Mona, arms crossed. “It’s a private wedding, so don’t get any ideas.”
“Hey,” Wes snapped. “I was friends with those O’Donnells in school too. Arch and me were tight.”
From the side of the room, Arch snorted and shook his head. Hero came down from the ladder he’d been working on, walking slowly toward the conversation.
Wes fell into a slouchy pose, the same sort he’d always had when bullying the less popular kids in school. He crossed his arms and nodded to Denise. “What I wanna know is how a dumb chick who got herself knocked up ever made friends with someone as classy as Elvie O’Donnell.”
Denise was so angry she saw red. “You had a lot to do with that getting knocked up thing, Wes,” she seethed.
“You could have said no, you know.” He looked her up and down as if she’d been the one at fault.
Could she have said no? Could her seventeen-year-old self really have said no when her boyfriend, the captain of the football team and most popular guy at school, the guy who held her reputation in the palm of his hand and had told her he loved her, that he would marry her once they graduated, really have said no?
“Excuse me.” Hero stepped up to Denise’s side, staring at Wes with narrowed eyes. “A gentleman doesn’t belittle the mother of his child.”
“Who asked you, Chinky?” Wes fired back.
Denise could have spit at Wes for his racial slur, but Hero ignored it.
“I don’t know what happened all those years ago between you, and I don’t really care,” Hero went on, speaking calmly. “But from what I have been told, you were the one who ducked out on your responsibility, leaving Denise in a difficult situation.”
Wes sniffed. “Plenty of women get knocked up in high school and do much better than she’s done.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Denise barked.
Wes glared at her. “It means that my baby girl is living in a lousy shack of a house and wearing ugly clothes that probably came from a third-rate thrift store. She didn’t even have an iPad.”
“There is nothing wrong with our house.” Denise defended herself. “It’s clean and warm and paid for. And Destiny picks out her own clothes now. She and her friends like thrift store shopping.”
“Ugh.” Mona shook her head, grimacing like she’d sucked on a lemon.
“And where have you been all this time. Not paying child support, that’s for sure,” Denise went on.
“Yeah, well, if I’d known what a terrible mother you are, I would have taken my baby girl back to live with me a lot sooner.”
Denise didn’t like any part of his statement. Her anger shifted to deep, deep worry.
Wes must have seen it. He sneered and took a step closer to her. “You know who I ran into at Bob’s Burger Barn last night?”
“Who?” Denise hated that her voice quavered.
“Rich Shaughnessy. You know, from our class?”
“I know Rich.”
“He’s here for the reunion too.”
“Obviously.”
“He’s a lawyer now, you know.”
Denise swallowed. There was only one place this terrible conversation was going. “I’d heard.”
“Well, me and Mona had dinner with him and his wife. I brought up my little problem.”
“What problem?” Hero stepped in, his brow creased with concern.
“Not that it’s any of your business—” Wes rolled his eyes at Hero. “—but it turns out he has a thing or two to say about child custody cases.”
Denise’s worry changed to flat-out fear.
“Turns out that if the court has to choose between a pitiful loser who has a history of being a rotten human being with a string of boyfriends behind her—” He sent Hero another peevish look. “or an established guy with a good job, a great house, and a wife, they tend to go for the guy.”
“Any court worth its salt would take into consideration the years of care a single mother has put into raising a child without child support,” He
ro countered. “They’ll see right through your political ambitions too.”
“I didn’t ask you,” Wes said without looking at Hero.
As much as Denise wanted to believe Hero was right and that there was no way a court could take Destiny and give her to Wes, she knew better. She knew she’d been a horrible person, that if a judge scratched the surface of the person she’d been, he’d find her wanting. She knew full well she didn’t have much money and that the kind of life Wes could provide for Destiny—materially, at least—was better than anything she could afford. She knew that the system wasn’t always fair too. Wes wasn’t bluffing.
And as a last straw, in case she had any doubt, he said, “You better say your last goodbyes to Destiny, ’cuz she’s got a far better destiny than growing up with her loser mom in this loser town.”
“You can’t take my daughter away from me,” Denise replied, half determination, half desperation, her voice hoarse with fear.
Wes leaned in closer. “Watch me.” He straightened and chuckled at the pale look of dread on Denise’s face, then grabbed Mona’s arm. “Come on, sweetie. Let’s get out of here. We can go pick out stuff for Destiny’s new room at our house.”
All Denise could do was stand there and watch as Wes and Mona walked out. Why hadn’t she seen it before? Wes had all the swagger of a seasoned politician. He had always been able to get whatever he wanted with minimal effort, even back in high school. If he said he would take custody of Destiny, he probably could.
Overwhelmed by the thought, Denise slumped onto the front pew and hid her face in her hands. “He’s going to do it. He’s really going to do it.”
“No, he’s not.” Hero sat beside her, sliding an arm around her back and hugging her close. “I don’t care who he is, the justice system in this country doesn’t work like he said it does.”
“Are you sure?” She faced him with anxious eyes, just seconds away from shedding tears.
“I’m sure.”
